Lucy Liyou’s music carries with it deeply personal poetry, in a literal and metaphorical sense, conveyed using sound collage, noise, field recordings, and abstracted pop tendencies. When Notice first heard Lucy’s music, we were struck by its incredible honesty, vulnerability, and originality. For her first collaboration, A Need/A Want, she is joined by Philadelphia-based guitarist and lyricist Yska. Bizarre shards of Yska's electric guitar permeate Lucy’s deft and supple production techniques as the sounds contained throughout the two pieces produce moments of confusion, bliss, and catharsis. Using text-to-voice and largely unprocessed singing, the duo's lyrics present a refreshing and striking potency: “I’ve only been there once; and only for a little while; she walked like lavender; swaying, leaning…”. Music this honest and also so carefully crafted is a true treasure, and A Need/A Want is a testament to musicians honing their visions in a very unique way. --- Written by Lucy Liyou and Yska. Piano and production by Lucy Liyou. Guitar by Yska. Mastered by Branic Howard. Artwork by Sludge Thunder“A Want” contains a sample from “untitled” by Owen Sanger. Used with permission.

Erosion is a sprawling yet focused love affair with the bass drum, allowing myriad objects to playfully interact with its grand form. Kevin and Jacob engage with the instrument in an entirely unrelenting way, traversing textural, pointillist sections, as well as rippling metallic drones. Notice’s admiration of Kevin and Jacob’s work goes back to circa 2008, with Kevin’s album with Tetuzi Akiyama and Christian Kiefer ‎on the much-loved Digitalis Industries, and Jacob’s album with Tony Dryer and Jack Wright on Bug Incision Records. Since then, 2019’s Invasive Species became a stand-by, on which Kevin played and Jacob mastered. Erosion finds the two merging their techniques in a very palpable, sensuous way. As if rendering an amorphous sculpture in minuscule gestures: gathering, releasing, reapplying material in a structured improvisation; new patterns emerge yet resist completion, as if working with weighted feathers which are impossible to manage. The length of Erosion, each piece clocking at 40 minutes, allows for this sense of fascinating endlessness; a constant process of extraction and application of reemerging sonic forms. --- JFH / bass drumKC / bass drum ---Recorded in Berkeley, California on February 12, 2020 (A) and December 18, 2019 (B). Recorded, mixed, and mastered by JFH. Artwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery

Tim Olive returns for his third album on Notice, a rare solo outing from this avid collaborator. “Ribbon” is a document of his highly developed relationship with amplified object manipulation, in a manner most cathartic and engaged, and yet informed by compositional sensibility. This release is constructed from multiple tracks of a variety of sound sources recorded in his studio in Kobe, Japan; these tracks have then been edited and layered, in shifting densities and evolving textures. Despite the abrasiveness of these recordings, there is a certain kind of sensuality in their interactions. One may sense that these pieces can be touched, as if the air has become solidified, like slowly forming glass, flecked with mineral impurities, a movement shuddering in locked-place, shedding, bristling with multi-textured shards and strands of sonic material. --- Tim Olive / metal strips, rubber tubing, tuning forks, clockwork motors, metal teeth, bow, electromagnet, cassette playback head, magnetic pickups, octave divider, preamps ---Recorded Jan-Feb 2021 Kobe, Japan. Mastered by Anne-F Jacques. Artwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery

A Jack Spicer quote - “Get those words out of your mouth and into your heart” - may be useful when consuming this provocatively bare duo performance, which compels the listener to abandon any presumptions about improvised music. Switching between squeamish spurts of controlled trumpet exhalations and an intentionally hackneyed melodic line that grows more compelling with every repetition, Wick’s playing is obstinate, confusing, and deeply welcoming. rousay surrounds the trumpet’s pure and metallic tones with deft sonic movement and anti-ideas, oddly-placed drum rolls and rhythmically elusive brushed patterns. Recorded at Marigny Studios in New Orleans by Rick Nelson, this is music that is egoless, non-narrative, and without identity, and yet it is in fact emphatic and deeply felt. The duo insists on framing improvisation on their own terms, not so much ignoring chops and improv tropes, but playing as if they simply don’t exist, a brash surfacing of new paths forward. --- Jacob Wick - trumpetclaire rousay - percussion ---Recorded June 14, 2019 by Rick Nelson at Marigny Studios, New Orleans, LAMastered by Andrew Weathers

Extremities documents the first meeting of Jessica Ackerley and Patrick Shiroishi, recorded live in a basement apartment in Chinatown, Los Angeles. Both musicians come from strong improvised and free music scenes: Ackerley from NYC, and Shiroishi from L.A. There is a joyful sense of abandon here; the love affair each musician has with their instrument produces a dripping intensity, congealing upon impact with the physical, coalescing into a new form; fresh contours, rippled textures glinting in the atmosphere of passive space, as their musical chemistry manifests in instantaneous spurts. Stylistically, the album ranges from free jazz to noise and even serrated slices of metal. This makes for music constantly branching out from an agitated core: bulbous and irregular, and convolutedly engaging from start to finish. --- Jessica Ackerley / guitarPatrick Shiroishi / saxophones, percussion --- Recorded by Jared RodriguezMixed and mastered by Lucas BrodeArtwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery"Garlic Foot" and "Knowing What to Write" (detail), 2020

Recorded live, this album presents Lonberg-Holm in an intimate relationship with his cello, beautifully recorded by Joaquim Montes at Studio Namouche in Lisbon. Using a variety of extended techniques, he conjures a barrage of multiphonics, interwoven timbral excursions, and minuscule textural knots lined along the peripheral architecture of these pieces. Lonberg-Holm alludes to his music having a non-denominational devotional presence in his life, and this relationship is evident in these deeply personal improvisations. This is visceral playing: heavy, dry, honest, and unpretentious. Lonberg-Holm has performed in an exceptional number of free jazz and free improvised ensembles, not to mention with a variety of indie rock bands; one can hear this experience permeating the seasoned playing in these recordings.----Artist's statement:"Over the years, I have made a number of solo recordings, some in studios such as the now demolished Airwaves in Chicago and the first ESS location (now gone as well), some in concert halls (e.g., Mills College), some outdoors (my father’s farm in central NY as well as the Florida Everglades), and a few at various homes I have lived in. Location has an obvious impact and my long and affectionate relationship with Lisbon inspired me to want to make a solo document there. I have recorded with a variety of projects at Studio Namouche in the Benfica neighborhood of Lisbon and love it. That was where I wanted to make this solo recording.Anyone who has been to Namouche knows it is a magical place. A faded version of its once probably grand self, Namouche is a sort of small RCA studio A that somehow survived the tumults of the recording industry; it still has the right proportions and materials on the walls, floor and ceiling. Add in good mics, a mixing desk, and the very capable ears of head engineer Joaquim Montes and it’s about perfect.I’ve described the cello as a “four string busy box” for many years but only recently did I realize it also acts as a “safe space” for me. Although the outcome of pressing the various levers is more unpredictible on a cello than a busy box, I still feel that if I follow the material where it wants to go, nothing can go wrong. It is an act of faith.For many years, “religious” music has been a source of entertainment and inspiration for me. In spite (or because?) of my lack of religious identity I find beauty in many types of music for worship. Over the years, at different times, I have been obsessed with Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Buddhist musics, sermons and chants. While I sometimes fantasize about making a record of religious music, the only faith I can claim to have any real relationship with is Christianity and a recording of Christian music might be misunderstood so . . . I refrain. Instead, I like to think that my solo cello improvisations are a kind of non-denominational devotional music.During the period when this was recorded, I was listening a lot to Alfred Reed. He seems to favor a very low A (almost A flat) and I experimented with tuning my cello down as a result. Some of the tracks are at that lower pitch and others are closer to A440.Namouche has a very fine grand piano and a number of other excellent keyboards. They also have some derelict pianos. Most noticeable are the two in the front vestibule and the one in the live room. The short piano pieces were recorded using only the piano in the live room. Because such wrecks aren't found in most good studios, I couldn’t resist playing it. The juxtaposition of a derelict instrument and an incompetent pianist in a great room with excellent equipment was simply too good to pass up." --- Fred Lonberg-Holm / cello, unprepared piano --- Recorded March 21, 2019 by Joaquim Montes at Namouche Studios, LisbonMastered by Branic Howard, Portland OR

Recorded live at a small bookstore in Dallas called The Wild Detectives, Success presents two symbiotic improvisers generating dense layers of sonic texture. Extensions of electric guitar and saxophone are precipitated into the listener’s consciousness like rampant cloud seeding; billowing forth surges of peripheral energy, an overflow continuously trimmed from the edges and falling to the floor. Often one’s sense of instrument distinction becomes blurred. Despite sounds being created separately by both forced air and amplified electromagnetic feedback, timbres converge with the room itself to create an enormous presence and a unifying, exhausting, gratifying listen, neatly augmented by the palpable presence of room tone. --- Steve Baczkowski / tenor, baritone saxophonesBill Nace / electric guitar ---Recorded live at The Wild Detectives, Dallas TX, August 16, 2019 by Stephen LucasMastered by Mark Alan Miller

This set of improvised pieces is made up of Montréalers Raphaël Foisy-Couture (bass), Vicky Mettler (guitar), and Vancouverite Lisa Cay Miller (piano). There's a relaxed atmosphere among the trio, despite seemingly disparate elements that swing and play with a tight cohesion; networked fistulas convey and receive. Along with their industriousness, this keeps their music light and exploratory, appealingly collectively-minded throughout. Miller only occasionally breaks out into fitful knots of block chords, her and Foisy's slyly executed extended techniques keep flowing a steady variety of sounds, and Mettler's crafty instrumental resourcefulness (as in the prismatic folk of her project Kee Avil) results in a deeply pleasing group improvisation that often feels wonderfully domestic. --- Lisa Cay Miller / pianoVicky Mettler / guitarRaphaël Foisy-Couture / upright bass --- Recording and mixing by Zachary Scholes, Montréal QC Mastered by Branic Howard, Portland ORopenfieldrecording.com Artwork by Raphaël Foisy-Couture

This studio recording of Jason Kahn (voice) and Ilia Belorukov (modular synthesizer) is tense and taut, as dry, crumbling sonic swathes manifest both as machine and human, facilitating an almost ceremonial liberation. Kahn has historically been known for electronic sounds exhibiting stasis and abrasive, enduring minimalism; as of late his work has been primarily concerned with his own unaltered voice. Belorukov’s work exists within the realm of improvised noise and electroacoustics, as he prioritizes a wide range of collaborations. Kahn's voice provides a stark contrast to Belorukov's jagged synthesis, like examining oneself close-up in a mirror. Here, these prolific musicians share a unique, intimate intensity through drastically different approaches. --- Jason Kahn - voiceIlia Belorukov - modular synthesizer ---Recorded by Ilia Belorukov at Sdvig in Saint-Petersburg on 30 Sept 2018 (A1, A2), and by Jason Kahn at WIM in Zürich on 28 Feb 2019 (B1, B2, B3)Mixed by Jason Kahn (A1, A2) and Ilia Belorukov (B1, B2, B3)Mastered by Ilia Belorukov, Saint-PetersburgThanks to Pro Helvetia and Kurt LiedwartArtwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery

Olive and Naka's collaboration pairs two musicians working with lo-/mid-fi sonics and modified/self-made instruments. Through extensive recording and touring, the duo has honed a patient aesthetic, allowing each other's sounds to unfold with minimal, sure-footed interactions, akin to moving along a path up the mountain for which this release is titled. Naka's sources here consist mainly of "long loops of sagging/distressed cassette tape winding into and out of similarly distressed portable tape players, with real-time analog processing." Olive uses magnetic pickups and analog electronics. This leads to sounds of uncertain provenance, playfully emerging from a thick analog haze, building toward surprising, subtle crescendos. This is work that results from, and produces, an active semblance of stillness. --- Takuji Naka / tapes, electronicsTim Olive / magnetic pickups, electronics --- Recorded in Kyoto, Japan, 2019Mastered by Branic Howard, Portland ORArtwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery

Notice Recordings’ Chicago origins were heavily galvanized by regularly seeing sets by cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and multi-instrumental improviser Zoots Houston. Both have since separately relocated to Kingston, NY, where they continue to engage with the kinds of musical exchanges exemplified here. This set, recorded live at Chicago’s Elastic Arts, finds them performing with percussionist Ben Bennett. Bennett, a musician and performance artist, is a notable figure in the current and vibrant free improv and jazz scene in NYC; recent collaborations include Michael Foster and Jack Wright, among others. All three players metaphorically deconstruct their instruments while scattering pockets of agitated hot air on the performance floor, augmented with pedals, radioesque static sweeps, tightly propelled breaths, and extended techniques. This is dry, heavily structural, bristling stuff, with periodic digressions into melody and a strong control of focused and at times uncomfortably magnified timbres. Much of the material is urgent and electronic, filling the space and remaining firmly gestural. These two sidelong sets display slices of time coming from strong voices within this niche of contemporary improvisation. ---Ben Bennett / percussionZoots Houston / synthesizer, objectsFred Lonberg-Holm / cello ---Recorded live at Elastic Arts, Chicago by Dave Zuchowski, July 21, 2016Mastered by Branic Howard, Open Field, Portland, ORArtwork and layout by E. Lindorff-ElleryLetterpress printed by Small Fires Press, New Orleans

We first became aware of Mike Weis through his drumming in Chicago's Zelienople, in which he blended hypnotic, delicate grooves and shimmering auxiliary percussion into the band's unique downcast drone-folk. In recent years, Weis has expanded his exploration into meditation and ritual in music performance, exemplified by this set recorded for the 2018 Winter Solstice. Weis' mix of such unconventional percussion instruments as tongue drum, dholak, and changgo, as well as gongs, bells, and objects, all performed live, is typical in its unerring time, tightly controlled dynamics, and dense yet drifting atmosphere. The music settles in places which aren’t visible upon first sight, and, like walking through a foggy, mid-December field, pock-marked with patches of snow and tufts of brown grass, sounds reveal themselves for a moment of recognition and familiarity, only to recede, vignetted by the enveloping atmosphere. Mike Weis has been deeply admired by Notice since our inception, and In Low Light provides an engaging illustration of his practice. --- Mike Weis / mbira, tongue drum, dholak, changgo, bass drum, cymbals, gongs, singing bowls, bells, dharma bell, moktak, field recordings --- Tracklisting: 1. Number 1 - 07:062. Number 2 - 05:343. Number 3 - 03:014. Number 4 - 05:145. Number 5 - 02:486. Number 6 - 05:357. Number 7 - 03:538. Number 8 - 05:16 --- Recorded early Winter 2018 Pre-mastering by Matt Christensen Mastered by Branic Howard, Portland OR

Notice Recordings is pleased to present the release of Portland, Oregon-based percussionist Matt Hannafin’s “John Cage: Four Realizations for Solo Percussion”, which offers attentive, probing interpretations of pieces that bookend the final thirty years of the composer’s work. Simultaneously restless and nuanced, Hannafin’s performance demonstrates Cage’s continued relevance and enduring ability to push performers beyond their performative biases and toward the unexpected.Written with no instrumentation, “Variations II” (1961) and “Variations III” (1963) both provide toolkit-like sets of marked-up transparencies which are allowed to fall into random overlapping patterns. “c Ȼomposed Improvisation for One-Sided Drums with or without Jangles” and “One4” (both 1990) are two of only five pieces Cage wrote specifically for solo percussion, and explore Cage’s late-career interest in directed improvisation. “c Ȼomposed Improvisation” was written for percussionist Glen Velez, with whom Matt Hannafin studied just three years after the piece was created.Commissioned by Notice Recordings, these four performances are in dialogue not only with each other but with Notice itself, which has its roots in the underground/DIY realm while also exploring contemporary/academic composition. The accessibility, inventiveness, and challenge of compositions like these make Cage a unique pivot point between these two worlds.

On the long-awaited Exaptations, Toronto-based composer Nick Storring presents two highly textural, side-long pieces. On “Field Lines”, originally composed for Yvonne NG Peck Wan‘s dance piece, Magnetic Fields, a certain fragmented, uncertain openness is conveyed: a series of brief, dreamlike clearings are vignetted by pregnant silences or various levels of waking or sleeping states. Storring plays with a variety of tonal instruments that swell and tumble along while being nipped at by expressive percussion. Organic clusters develop within event-based sequences, stretching attention across multiple timbres and rhythms. On “Yield Criteria”, shifting drones move about like independent layers of ice on a lake in the dead of winter, slowing crumbling, sliding, and cracking in perfect harmony. Storring has written for dance and other interdisciplinary settings, and here he brings the delicate resourcefulness of a skilled accompanist, as well as a narrative sense that belatedly, profoundly blossoms. --- Field Lines: Composed and recorded October 2013 - May 2014 for Yvonne Ng's dance piece, Magnetic Fields, which premiered in May 2014.Nick Storring / various percussion and found objects, vibraphone, glockenspiel, balafon, chimes, hand bells, toy pianos, thumb pianos, voice/whistling, electric (NS Designs NXT4) and acoustic cellos, electric bass, electric mandola, violin, hammered dulcimer, Hohner Pianet T, Yamaha CP60M, Hohner Clavinet D6, flutes, harpsicle, strumstick, guitalele, steel pan, harmonica, melodica, pitch pipes, hulosiSpecial thanks to Yvonne, Marie-Josée Chartier, Mairead Filgate, Luke Garwood, Christopher Willes. Thank you to Germaine Liu for the use of her vibraphone, and John Farah for the use of his Pianet.Yield Criteria:Composed and recorded February - June 2014.Nick Storring / NS Designs NXT4 electric cello, electric bass, electric mandola, thunder tubes, Yamaha CP60M, toy piano, harmonica, duck call, voice, hand bells, glockenspielElements were used in Eva Kolcze's film, All That Is Solid. Thank you to Eva, Spencer Barclay, Jason Doell, Brandon Valdivia, and Bryan Bray.Processing and manipulation performed on the above sound sources (and the sound of a blank, chemically-treated 16mm film sound-strip) using combinations of the following: transducer speakers on various resonant chambers, instruments and surfaces; talkbox; spring reverb; recordable cassette walkman; various speakers; (contact) microphones.Special thanks to Nicole Cultraro for her violin and kalimba, her support and inspiration, and patience with my process. Thanks also to Andrew Zukerman.Gratitude also to all who listened and offered feedback.Artwork and layout by E. Lindorff-ElleryPrinted by John Fitzgerald at Fitzgerald Letterpress, New Orleans

Judith Berkson, a composer, singer, and pianist based in NYC, has been honing her Liederkreis project since 2016, which features electronically-augmented vocal interpretations of lieder by such composers as Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann, as well as purely electronic pieces engaging noise and feedback-oriented vignettes. This new release finds Judith continuing a more song-oriented approach, as previously explored on her 2010 ECM release Oylam. The pieces contained on Liederkreis II are deeply haunting, timbrally sensuous, and a notably divergent aesthetic for Notice Recordings. Judith is taking her electronically-processed vocals and conforming them to the slowly dripping, contorted melodies of Schubert and Schumann’s lieder, firmly within the lineage of such artists as Klaus Nomi and Kraftwerk. Liederkreis II exists as a commentary of a hypermodern relationship with classical music: both an admiration and a recontextualisation. This is music that is at once both personal and emotional, and formal and mechanical. It is both beautiful and anxious. It is within this contrast that the album retains such an alluring presence, and we are honored to facilitate its existence. -- Liederkreis - voice, electronics, synthesizer Recorded and mastered at Menegroth the Thousand Caves by Colin Marston. Woodhaven, Queens, New York Castle is an interpretation of Liederkreis op. 39 No. 7 Auf einer Burg by Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Doppelgänger, Harpers, Suns, Der Kreuzzug are interpretations of lieder by Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Thank you to Franz, Franke, Sigmund, Saul, Robert and Clara and Joseph Gabriel Esther Maneri Artwork by E. Lindorff-Ellery"Relaxing in the Desert Under an Overcast Sky in the Sunset", 2020evanlindorffellery.com Letterpress printed by Small Fires Press, New Orleanssmallfirespress.com

Portland, Ore. musician and naturalist Loren Chasse has a long and varied history within the more organic and textural branches of drone and sound art. Comprising pregnant field recordings, tense drone whispers, and wispy layers of texture, The Sodden Floor’s dark superimpositions drift between momentary dread and almost childlike abstraction. They seem composed with an eye on cinema: sounds drift into focus and then cut or pan away; the resulting shifts constitute a dreamlike presence only sustainable within an ephemeral world, one documented with a half-awake awareness — leaving or coming — but always accepting the flittering yet immovable mise-en-scène aesthetic of non-existence. --- "Currently based in Portland, Oregon, Loren Chasse has long created and curated music with lots of delicacy and otherness. His new solo cassette mixes improvisations on his grandfather’s melodeon with a heavily weighted atmosphere of darkness. Feels like it was recorded in a haunted, bell-strung, moss-crusted cabin. For all we know, it was." - Byron Coley, The Wire

Space Collective 2 Live commemorates Portuguese musician Rafael Toral’s first U.S. tour in several years. Since the 1990s, Toral has been primarily known for his guitar work, but has since been working on the Space Program project, within which he has probed visceral and personal components of electronic music performance, and how they relate to the performer's experience, not to the resultant product.These recordings, taken from a live set at All Tomorrow’s Parties in 2012, find Toral performing with drummer Afonso Simões, developing sparse, deep textures with triggers and modular oddities. Smartly paced and absolutely blistering at times, this set touches on a variety of surprising tones: flute-like expressions, spacey warbles, and intricately patterned arpeggios that dissolve into drone sections with confrontational sonic palettes. --- Rafael Toral / electronicsAlfonso Simões / drums ---Artwork and layout by E. Lindorff-ElleryPrinted by Fitzgerald Letterpress --- Tracklisting: 1. Part I - 17:232. Part II - 13:38

Although living in separate European countries, Akama (electronics) and Duplant (organ, electronics) have forged a strong musical bond on a handful of collaborative releases, often with titles related to nothingness, which, in turn, mirrors the minimal, contemplative drone pieces contained therein. As its own titling suggests, immobilité (“immobility”) extends their musical concerns, and distills them in an extraordinarily rich way. More textural than event-based, these pieces are exquisitely paced to complement their roomy, crackling palette. Starting from two points—Duplant’s minimal score and his own parts—Akama reaches for more synthetic sounds than she has in the past. Duplant has resisted being labeled as a Wandelweiser composer. There is an element here that’s more personal to this duo, even down to the ticking of a clock. immobilité is a purposeful new statement from two artists who enthusiastically acknowledge their musical kinship. --- Ryoko Akama / electronicsBruno Duplant / organ, electronics ---Fue Akama - DrawingLayout by E. Lindorff-ElleryPrinted by Fitzgerald Letterpress